Trip to Washington

I’m still blogging! I have some great photos to share from our TWO WEEK trip to the Evergreen State of Washington. I don’t know that I’ve ever spent that much time with all six of us together — that’s every meal, every day, for fourteen days. The purpose of the trip to to truly spend time as a family without distractions. No friends coming by to kidnap my kids, no traveling to 14 houses for Christmas parties, no internet (!) — just us, and only us.

After 3 hours of driving to the ocean, everyone’s truly smiling.

We started with doing some frugal homework. Mr. TellBlast was experienced in finding flights and buying tickets, and he found dates with good prices. We’d leave on a Sunday and return on a Saturday. We thought Tuesday might have better prices, but it didn’t. That belief was based on non-holiday travel, which was probably a factor in this trip.

Everyone’s always happy before a trip really starts

The other homework was about lodging. The target was $200 or less per night for lodging the six of us. Mission accomplished, through vacation rental house websites. A few emails and phone calls placed two weeks before booking got us under that rather easily. We based $200 per night on 1) being in unfamiliar locations and 2) hotel pricing that we found for two neighboring or adjoining rooms for six. After our experience with renting a condo in Colorado, we knew that the freedom a rental house gives you is awesome!

A welcome sight — the rental was lit and had a trimmed tree in the great room.

When in a hotel room, we have to worry about keeping quiet because of the neighboring rooms, the lack of space — six people require a lot of seats, lack of laundry facilities, understocked kitchenware for the kitchenette….the list goes on. Hotels are tough for us. Everyone got to have a space to use as a retreat when things got rough from close contact. Luckily that happened less than once a day.